Can't Let Go
by Song Of A Free Heart
Summary: Once Upon A Time AU There are no happy endings in Storybrooke. Jace Overland knows that better than most. He may not remember his time as the winter spirit Jack Frost, he knows that something about his life - about the town - doesn't line up. And he can't explain why, but he knows he's drawn to a certain blonde in a way he can't resist.


**For Eva. 3**

**She's a Jackunzel shipper, and an OUAT shipper. So, when I saw some Jackunzel OUAT gifs from her friend Mic Mic, I got the idea for this. The names Jace and Raye are from their fanfic, **_**Moonstroke**_**. **

**I don't know **_**Rise of the Guardians**_**, **_**Tangled**_** or **_**Once Upon A Time**_**. **

_Can't Let You Go_

There were no happy endings in Storybrooke.

There was only odds that were forever stacked against you. Just when you thought things might go your way, they took a turn to be worse than they'd ever been. You made the worst decisions, because it was like you were cursed to walk right into your worst possible suffering.

If there was happiness in the world, there was a glass wall that kept it out of Storybrooke.

Jace Overland knew that as well as anyone. Possibly more so, because he watched everything. No one noticed him, so he saw what they didn't want anyone to see. He saw the people who walked into Mr. Gold's shop, glancing furtively over their shoulders – but never seeing him on the street corner. He saw the upstanding citizens who turned into monsters behind closed doors. He saw the women who slipped things into their purses at the store, either because they couldn't afford it, or just because. He watched Graham run to Regina's call like a whipped dog, though he never seemed happy about it.

He watched it all spiral around him – the ones who were lonely, angry, bitter, desperate. The ones who desperately wanted out, but never could. Because something always happened.

And he saw the few people who weren't happy, but were pleased to revel in the misery around them.

Regina mills was one of them. She seemed closer to happy than anyone else. But the word didn't fit, because Jace was fairly sure you needed a soul to be happy.

Mr. Gold… well, Jack preferred to avoid him. He was pretty sure the man was the only one who never overlooked him the way everyone else did.

Jace leaned back in the booth at Granny's, watching the normal buzz that happened every morning as people came in for coffee, breakfast and conversation. All in a vain attempt to pretend they didn't feel so alone.

The door opened again, letting in a draft of autumn air – not that it bothered him. The cold never bothered him.

"I keep telling you, Raye – if you want to get anywhere in life, you have to stop being so ditzy, dear. I don't know what you would do if I wasn't here to hold your hand every step of the way. Really, it's exhausting."

Jace ran a hand through his brown hair, wishing the woman would just. shut. up. Didn't she ever get tired of belittling her daughter?

But Galina was one of those few who enjoyed suffering. Especially her daughter's. As long as she thought she looked good, and no one dared challenge her, she was content. Now she sauntered up to the counter, her dark red dress hugging the curve of her hips in a way that left little to the imagination. Her black curls were stiff and shiny with product, her face covered in powder.

Behind her trailed her daughter Raye, short brown hair framing a heart shaped face. Docile as her mother was arrogant, doing her best to go unnoticed, apologizing whenever she was brought to anyone's attention. She was pretty – though Jace thought she would be a whole lot pretty if she'd smile once in a while. Not that she was asking his opinion.

Not that anyone was.

As she looked around the room, where most people's eyes would slide right over him without seeming to register hew as there, hers locked with him. She looked away quickly. But she knew he was there. She always did. He suspected she was as hyper aware of him as he was of her.

Galina ordered her sugar-free, nonfat hazelnut latte. Ray ordered a small raspberry tea, and a lemon poppy seed muffin. Her mother balked.

"That muffin will go right to your thighs, Raye."

He watched it almost every morning, but it still made him sick to his stomach. The worst part was that this was tame compared to what went on when Galina thought no one was listening.

Jace looked away from the mother and daughter, turning his attention instead to the waitress passing his table yet again. "Ruby."

She glanced back, eyes widening when she saw him seated in the booth. "How long have you been there?"

"Twenty minutes." Closer to forty, actually, during which she'd walked past more than eight times without noticing.

"The usual?"

He nodded.

She came back a few minutes later with a mug of peppermint hot chocolate, topped with extra whipped cream.

As he drank it, Jace watched the morning rush thin out, doing his best to ignore Galina as she complained from a few tables down.

#

Jack sat on one of the bare branches of a birch tree, one leg hung down in midair, foot tapping to an imagined rhythm in his own head. His head leaned back against the trunk of the tree as he looked out at his work. In the moonlight the ice on the surface of the pond, and the snow on the ground glittered like diamonds. Even after all this time he never lost a sense of wonder at what his handiwork could create. A "winter wonderland" as some people called it.

And much as he loved listening to the laughter of children as they played in the snow, he could appreciate the beauty of a quiet, snowy night.

This one was coming to an end, though.

He looked out at the eastern horizon, where the sky had begun to fade from black to shades of blue and grey. As he watched, the sun began to rise above the black shadow of the horizon, so light spilled between the trees.

Taking a deep breath, Jack leaned back against the tree trunk to enjoy the last few minutes of silence before the first bird would chirp and the town came back to life for another day.

But the sound that reached him a moment later wasn't the sound of a bird. It was a voice. Warm as sunlight, singing words he couldn't make out from the distance, but still familiar.

"Oh, no," he muttered, standing up on the branch and looking at the forest around him. "No!"

He shook his head as he saw the golden tendrils of light spreading vine-like through the trees, bringing with it a warmth that hadn't been known since the Autumn turn from the heat of Summer to the frost of Winter.

As the warmth spread through the air, the trees around Jack seemed to sigh and relief. He almost felt a snowflake melt on a nearby tree, slide, drip and splash down to the snow gathered on the ground below.

His grip tightened on his staff and the wind picked him up off the branch. It carried him through the tendrils of light that continued to spread further through trees. Jack followed them to his heart, dodging trees and doing his best to avoid the warmth, which became harder the further he went. The air around him grew warmer and brighter until he came to a small clearing deep in the heart of the forest, where the snow had already melted away to reveal lush green grass scattered with brilliant wild flowers. The trees just at the edge of the clearing were already blooming with flowers and new leaves. It would be a few weeks before the rest of the forest matched this clearing, but Spring had a fortress in the woods, and Winter was going to lose eventually. As he did every year.

And all of it – the light, the warmth, and the song that initially alerted him – came from the same source. The source being the small blond figure currently seated on top of a boulder near the center of a clearing. Her voice was bright and clear as she pulled a brush through her seemingly endless locks of hair that glowed with all the light of the sun.

The brush seemed to gather the light in her hair, and each stroke sent another vine of light out amongst the trees.

Jack's jaw clenched, and he almost glared at the purple butterfly that fluttered around her. Her green eyes followed it, her lips spreading in a smile, but she never stopped singing. And if she saw him, she showed no sign of it.

"You're early, Rapunzel" he said, not paying any mind to the fact he was interrupting her song.

"Again."

She finally stopped singing. The light of her hair dimmed a little, but it didn't fade. And she didn't stop brushing her hair, and each stroke continued to send another tendril of light out into the forest.

"You say that every year," she said. Her smile didn't fade.

_Swoosh_

Another brush stroke. Another tendril of light swirled from her hair, out into the air. The way it move, twisting and turning, reminded him a little of Sandy's Dream Sand – or a rapidly growing vine. This one was more erratic than most, and it dipped close to the earth, grazing the grass before it turned upward again and vanished into the forest.

A crocus bloomed from the spot where the light had touched.

Jack looked back at Rapunzel. "Because you're early every year."

"Not really," she said. "You just don't like letting go."

"I spent three months working on this!" He said, gesturing at the winter landscape behind him.

But he didn't have to look to know it was already fading. The glasslike frost he had incased the tree trunks in so they wouldn't look so bare had already melted, and the snow caught the branches continued to drip down. Each drop of water, each melted snowflake, would erode the layer of snow he had blanketed the ground with, until it would all be gone and he would be forced to move on so Rapunzel would have her time to reign over the forest for a season, until Hiccup would come to take her crown.

"Jack, it's already March."

He couldn't respond to that, since they both knew this was when she was supposed to begin her work.

"And we both know you drive Merida out weeks before the equinox." She finally stopped brushing her hair, and set the brush on the rock beside her.

"Once the leaves fall there's no point for her to stick around," he said.

Rapunzel shook her head, giggling while Jack continued to frown. From the corner of his eye he saw her raise her hand to her mouth. Her lips pressed briefly against her fingertips, and she blew the kiss in his direction.

Her breath sent a cloud of light washing over him. The warmth made him stumble back, a shiver shooting up his spine as the essence that was the opposite of his own embraced him before it continued on into the forest.

"You have places to be, Jack," she said. "It's not as though I'm sending you into exile for nine months."

Jack glared at her, still recovering.

Her smile was still in place as she got down from the boulder. Forget-me-nots began to bloom under her foot from the moment her toe touched the ground. She came toward him, her hair whispering in the grass as it trailed behind her. The silk of her dress swayed with every move.

She came to a stop right in front of him, still smiling as she looked up at him.

She was so small, Jack noticed.

Their eyes locked for a time, though Jack couldn't begin to measure it. Her gaze was soft, and at this distance the floral perfume that emanated from her was almost heady. If anyone asked, that was the only reason he would claim for standing still so long.

#

Jace skidded around the corner of the alleyway, running full tile – heart pounding, lungs burning, leg muscles pushed to their limit. He probably shouldn't enjoy this, but he lived for these moments. Because these moments, running Hard with Sheriff Graham close on his heels, were some of the only times he felt alive. Like the feeling of the wind in his hair was supposed to be second nature, he had just somehow forgotten about it.

He braced his hands on the low brick wall that separated someone's front yard from the side walk and vaulted over it. His mind raced over whether it was best to duck and hide behind the wall, or keep running across the yard.

He did neither.

The branch of a rosebush snagged the hem of his blue hoodie. The thorns refused to let go, Jace refused to pull hard enough the fabric would tear. It was an impasse, and by the time he got free, Graham had come to a stop on the other side of the wall. The inevitable conclusion. (Getting away wasn't really a possibility when Graham and Regina knew who he was.)

"Not a word," Jace muttered, as he worked the blue fabric, glaring over when Graham chuckled.

"How man times do we have to do this, Jace?"

"Until you find something better to do?" Jace suggested, finally getting free of the rose bush and shoving his hands in the pocket of his hoodie. "We've got people crashing into the sign, cutting down Regina's precious apple tree, and I was arrested for eating one of those apples. Don't you have bigger fish to fry?"

Graham rolled his eyes, grabbing Jace's upper arm. "Come on."

"All I did was spray paint the side of Regina's office."

"Graffiti."

"Is that an insult to my art skills?"

"Defamation of public property."

"A mural," Jace defended. "And the evil queen doesn't even have to pay me."

Graham glared at him as Jace vaulted back over the wall, back to the sidewalk, to be dragged down town.

"If you don't like it, choose your girlfriends more carefull."

Graham actually paled at that, and Jace just smirked. Even Graham, for all his skills, didn't notice Jace when he didn't want to be seen. And he watched for the patterns. The regularity with which Graham and Regina both arrived at Granny's every week was hard to miss, not to mention the frequency with which the sheriff was at the mayoral mansion. Two plus two is four. It wasn't hard to figure out.

Once they got to the sheriff's office it was all procedure. Face forward, turn to the left, turn to the right, purple ink on his fingertips, then dropped into the usual cell while Graham filled out a report. His week felt incomplete if he didn't go through it all at least once.

Not that he actually enjoyed it.

It was one of those Storybrooke things, where you made the worst decision that ensured a happy ending was out of reach. He was starting to think it was something in the water. Even though he didn't actually _want_ to go through it all, something always happened and he found himself outside the mayor's office with a couple cans of spray paint.

And the same person always saw him – more aware of his presence than any other. And she always called Graham. The irony almost hurt, because today, like so many other times before, it had been for her.

He lay on the hard cot on one side of the cell, glaring at the inside of his beanie, which he'd placed over his eyes.

Why were prison cells so small? Claustrophobia itched at the edges of his mind. Not enough to make him panic, but enough that he was hyper aware of being surrounded by four walls and a locked door.

The front door finally opened after what felt like hours, but was probably closer to thirty minutes. There were two people it could have been, and he knew from the sound of heels on the cement floor which one it was.

"Jace Overland."

"Madam mayor." He didn't bother looking over.

Regina was hardly interesting. Immaculate suit, hair styled and flipped out.

"I've already called your father," she said. "I don't supposed you have anything to say for yourself?"

He shrugged as best he could while lying down. He'd run out of clever things to say after about the twentieth time he'd been through this. And if he didn't have anything clever to say, he didn't see the point in saying anything at all.

The door opened, and Jace sighed.

"I came as soon as I could," Kozmotis Pitchner said, with his usual stiff formality.

Jace tuned out his father and the mayor as they exchanged pleasantires. This was all so routine, he even knew how to gage when he should tune back in.

"I don't even know where he gets spray paint anymore," Pitchner was saying. "The sores aren't supposed to sell it to him."

Jace yawned. The spray paint had shown up in his backpack a few weeks ago – and the only person he could think it might be was Mr. Gold. And he wished that didn't make sense.

"He'll clean it up, of course."

"Of course," Regina said.

And that was pretty much the end of it. Because Regina never actually did anything to him, aside from making him scrub down the wall outside her office. It made as little sense as Pitchner actually being his father – which he didn't believe as all.

While he got his backpack from Graham, sans spray paint, Pitchner and Regina discussed some issue for an upcoming city council meeting.

"You have my full support, of course," Pitchner said. "I defer to your judgment in all things, Regina."

The mayor's dark painted smile was tight, as though she knew Pitchner was her ally, but still didn't trust him. Well, Jace could hardly blame her for that.

#

Sometimes, in the back of his mind, when he wasn't focused, or when he was in the hazy land between sleeping and waking, a voice in the back of his mind would whisper that noting made sense.

Memories didn't line up.

Or rather, his memories lined up. Time didn't make sense. No matter how much he watched. No matter what patterns he found, they didn't make sense. Time didn't line up with his memories. And if he looked too close, the patterns started to fall apart.

Like Ashley. When exactly had she gotten pregnant? Because she'd been at about nine months as long as he could remember. He had memories of the past nine months… but if he tried to look too closely they were blurry around the edges.

And why, when he'd set out to paint Raye, had it morphed into a girl with an unrealistic length of golden hair?

Somewhere in his mind he'd hoped that if he could paint her, and if she could see it, she would know that everything her mother said about her was a lie.

Jace grimaced as he rolled his shoulders and went back to scrubbing gold paint off the brick wall. His arms ached, and he was nowhere near done. He just had to pain seventy feet of gold hair. What the heck had he been thinking?

And it was starting to rain. Great. Just what he needed.

He pulled his hood up, and returned his focus to cleaning.

He switched the brush to his left hand, where the muscles weren't as sore. But it was hard to get all the paint off with a hand he had less control over.

"What were you painting?"

He glanced over his shoulder to glare around the edge of his hood at Raye, who stood near by in her purple jacker.

After a moment he switched the brush back to his right hand before tersely admitting: "You."

"I'm not blonde," she said, an edge creeping into her voice.

"Yeah, well, my hand slipped."

"And it's not seventy feet long."

"Everyone's a critic."

He continued to scrub for a moment, before his mounting temper go the better of him and he slammed the brush back into the bucket of soap water. "Do you have to call Graham every single time?"

"You're breaking the law," she said, her green eyes darting to the remnants of his painting.

"This from Regina's secretary."

"What does that have to do with it?"

"Nothing." He waved it away. "Forget it."

Most people didn't see what he saw. They didn't hear conversations Regina had with Graham, or Sidney, or even Mr. Gold. Even what little they did see, most people turned a blind eye. And Raye… well, he didn't know how much she saw. Just that she still showed up every weekday at nine a.m. with Regina's coffee and sat behind the desk dutifully.

And like the moon followed the sun, he usually wound up here for some glimpse of her.

"No! You always say things like that!" Raye said, stepping closer. "What do you mean?"

"I don't want to know," he snapped. "Okay? I don't want to know."

"Know what?"

The rain had started to pick up, so he could feel the shoulders of his hoodie becoming wet, and their voices were raised as much out of anger as it was necessary to hear each other.

Jace shook his head.

He saw the worst of people when they didn't know he was watching. But he didn't want to see the worst of her. He didn't want to know how much she over looked in that office.

"You're impossible."

Everything was impossible, because nothing made sense.

Like the fact that in his mind's eye, he saw her with golden hair.

"Is it really supposed to be me?" she asked, after several minutes had stretched on.

"That's what I said, isn't it?"

"I'm not that pretty."

Jace finally turned to her. "That's your mother talking."

"What's _that_ supposed to mean?"

"That your mother is a verbally abusive, manipulative witch who lies like it's her native language – because it probably is!"

They both stood there, stunned at the words that had exploded from him.

He had wanted to say it out loud for so long, it tasted like honey on his tongue – a sweetness that masked a spice that stung the tastebuds in large doses. The words were harsh, but it felt good to finally say it.

Raye glared it him, through a sheen of tears that welled up. "If you ever wonder why you don't have friends Jace, the answer should be obvious!"

"If ever wonder why you have no self-confidence, Raye, the answer should be obvious!"

"How can you say that?"

"Because I watch! And I hear when she tells you you're fat, and ditzy, and vague, and sloppy, and ugly. I hear the way she tears you down, and you believe her!"

"She's right!"

"_Have you looked in a mirror lately?"_

Even through the increasing rain that started to blur his vision, he saw her lower lip tremble.

"Because you're beautiful! And I think I could love you if you grew a backbone and stopped swallowing everything she shoves down your throat!"

Both their eyes widened as they realized what he'd said.

He'd known the feeling, he just hadn't expected them to manifest out loud.

For a moment they both stood there, as the rain increased to a torrential downpour, cold drops hitting his face with a force that hurt.

His shoulders sagged. "But I'm just a teen delinquent, so what do you care?"

He started to turn back to the wall, but small hands grabbed the front of his hoodie, pulling him down until his mouth collided with hers. His response was instinctual, responding to the fervent kiss, wrapping an arm around her waist to pull her closer.

Something in the back of his mind exploded, images and words pouring out of a door locked so tightly he hadn't known it was there.

Memories of a girl with golden hair who painted the spring, flowers blooming wherever her feet touched the ground. Who smiled with the warmth of the sun – a warmth even the spirit of Winter couldn't resist.

Memories of a staff in his hand, frost surging through him as he fought back a swarm of nightmares.

Memories of kissing her as flowers bloomed to be kissed by a soft snowfall. Of promising her his heart, vowing his everything to her, as she did the same to him.

They both gasped, jerking apart as though they had been punched in the stomach. But still held close as her fingers tightened around the folds of his hoodie, and his fingers gripped her jacket until he could feel the tendons in his hands strained.

"Rapunzel," he whispered.

"Jack."

There were no happy endings in Storybrooke.

There was only what you fought tooth and nail to hold onto. The one thing you loved enough to deny every instinct that pushed you away from happiness. And denying it made you stronger, so you could hold tighter to what mattered.


End file.
